Church Musicians

[poliphilo]

Church Musicians Window, King's Heath, Birmingham

My pictures of the wedding were sub par, so I'm not posting any. If you're working in a dark building and you choose (for aesthetic reasons) to avoid flash you have to hope that your subjects will stay still and your hand won't shake. Sometimes you get lucky; this time I didn't. Never mind, the official photos will be fabulous.

This is my only success. I thought it might interest the church musicians among you. The window commemorates Leslie George White who was organist at Cambridge Rd Methodist Church for 63 years- from 1897 to 1960. He's sitting at the keyboard with his heroes towering above him. I love it how Charles Wesley gets to be the main man, with Bach and Handel as his sidekicks.

Comments

[theperfectfool.livejournal.com]

63 years... DEAR GOD...

If Methodists believed in Purgatory, he'd have a "get out of jail free" card.

Nice pic. I love the English style organ console -- classic.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I imagine the image of Mr White was taken from a photo. The organ console looks like the one in the church.

63 years is longer than Queen Victoria spent on the throne- amazing.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, something like that.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Beautiful windows, great musicians. I love Wesley's old hymns almost as much as Bach's "St. Matthew Passion", or Handel's "Messiah".
I hope you all had a nice day at the wedding.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The wedding was great.

Wesley isn't my favourite hymn-writer- but I like him well enough.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Perhaps because I am a Methodist???

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Charles Wesley? If you had suffered a Methodist upbringing you wouldn't be so glib. I've never wanted to put a rock through a stained glass window, before.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I gather you don't like the guy....

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

I don't like the cult with which he and his brother saddled us. I was raised Methodist and at one point was groomed for the ministry, had a moment or two in the pulpit, and was even a lay delegate to our state's annual conference a couple of years.

In the end, I suppose there are far worse Christian cults, out there. They seem to have moved away from their Klanish, white-trash roots, for the most part. But they are so flaccid, neither hot nor cold, Anglicanism sans pageant, history or heritage, and nothing to show for the loss. At conference, the ministers would whip themselves into an evangelical frenzy, vowing to return to their congregations and set the world on fire, then they'd go home and dish out the same pablum as always.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've not had a lot to do with Methodism. My view of it as drearily respectable has been shaken this past week by my encounter with a bunch of ribald, lesbian ministers and elders.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

"Drearily respectable": yes, that sums them up nicely. It's entirely possible that my own views might be shaken, if I got a closer look. Still, don't think I could ever get used to grape-juice communion and over here they're still rejecting gays and lesbians, with some observers saying the church may split, first.

One of my facebook friends is not only active in the Methodist Church, but even works for them, and he's no doubt at least as progressive and liberal as I am and a damned sight more lovable. My mother says that her church now does an early, informal service at which you're free to attend in bluejeans and a teeshirt, should you be inclined. Apparently, it is very well attended and not just by the young.